Terrific, limited edition box set collecting all the recordings made by this one of a like group of superstar musicians including: Art Farmer, Phil Woods, Zoot Sims, Curtis Fuller, Phil Woods, Freddie Hubbard, Benny Golson, Art Blakey, and Hank Jones. The set includes 5 CDs covering all of his 1959-60 studio and 1961 live Mercury sessions, as well as an earlier set from 1956 for ABC-Paramount and a 1961 date for Impulse. Also includes an exhaustive essay by Brian Priestley and a complete discography, as well as many rare photographs by Chuck Stewart.
What was the hardest-rocking band ever to notch three Top Ten hits? For our money, it s Steppenwolf. Formed from the Canadian band The Sparrow (including Dennis Edmonton a.k.a. Mars Bonfire), and led by vocalist John Kay, Steppenwolf scored with Born to Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride and Rock Me in the space of nine months back in 1968-1969, and hit the charts eleven more times up though the mid- 70s. Often tagged as a biker band mostly due to their prominent presence on the soundtrack to Easy Rider Steppenwolf was actually a socially-conscious, highly political outfit, never more so than on their controversial LP Monster, one of 14 charting albums released by the band over a 20-year period.
Universal's 2012 box set Ladies & Gentlemen…Mr. B.B. King is hardly the first B.B. King box set – MCA assembled a similar four-disc set called King of the Blues in 1992, Ace had a tremendous four-CD box called The Vintage Years in 2002 that covered his pre-ABC/Paramount recordings (apparently every ten years it's time for a new B.B. box) – but it certainly is the most ambitious, arriving in two separate career-spanning incarnations…